"I would hope you know two, including yourself. I take your point, though I would hope that being assigned to keep the sylph alive would help enforce honesty. After all, it would be their fault if he died."
But before she can say whatever is on her mind, you hear the familiar bubbly voices of the v'Ricci sisters behind you, trading sentences. "Volcano's lava, Fiordelise! We were just wondering where you were! Last night you were so..." they say the last word together, "Amazing!" They flank you, then proceed to pepper you with questions - where did you learn how to fight? Weren't you scared? They are too rapid to answer one at a time.
"Moight Oi come in, get a spot of somethin' cold on this great big oogly ting?" He swirls a finger in the air around his eye.
"As fer h'why Oi'm here, h'well...Oi've got a big problem, and a big secret, see? And no one else is crazy enoof to lassen to me, old school matey."
His fingers are more agitated now; his right hand insistently twirls and tugs on a small silver pinky ring on his left. "Your point regarding culpability is well made, though. I shall have to acquire approval for a punishment severe enough to counteract the rewards that any underhanded fellows may be counting on. Well made indeed, Corporal. To your post, while I make the necessary arrangements." His eyes return to his paperwork, and his long fingers waggle towards the door.
Fi is taken aback by the unexpected praise, her rising indignation suddenly extinguished. Though having turned to face the sisters she tries to suppress the itch between her shoulders as she imagines Isabella staring daggers into her back.
She raises a hand to try and quiet the sisters, with a smile quickly back on her face. "So many questions." she laughs gently.
"Perhaps we should find some time to discuss this properly. I was just calling to make sure Isabella found her way home without further harm - it appears that my actions scared her a little, I am sure that she merely feared for my safety as I did for her." she turns back to Isabella, hoping she has put off her anger for another time and less public place.
"Oh, yes yes come in Eldon come in," Byron says, stepping past him and opening the door.
He keeps up a constant stream of commentary on his various experiments as he leads the other sylph through his workshop to his comparatively tiny kitchen/living room/dining room and sits him down.
"I'm not sure I have anything good for that eye at the moment I used my curative extracts this morning you see I was involved in some altercations myself but perhaps you might tell me what this problem is while I look?" Byron babbles as he starts searching through his cupboards.
Eldon nods. "Oi figured not. So this rock, this soobstance, whatever, it can grant resistance to the Dark and darkspawn. I've seen it wid me own eyes, lad! Rare as hell, though. But get this - me old master was workin' on a way to manufacture the stoof, when he up and gets a bad case of the daggers-in-his-back one night. So I take his notes and get the volc outta town, ya see?"
He looks at you, to make sure your attention is on him, rather than racing through the theoretical possibilities of what he just said. "Now lad, just knowin' this is enough to make the Temple boys take a great dislike to ya, of the 'slit the ol' sylphie's throat if ya please' koind. Ya interested in decipherin' these here notes wid me, or you showin' me the door? No hard feelin's either way."
Dove himself comes down, escorting three privates: a pock-faced ifrit, and portly oread, and a pasty undine. The undine takes you by surprise - you were not aware there were any undines on the Dims Watch. The lieutenant has hardly entered the room when he turns around to exit. Over his shoulder he murmurs, "You are relieved, Corporal. Resume your regular duties. These men have been informed, in the most thorough way I could conceive, of what their responsibilities are here."
Fiordelise inwardly cringes, she barely has enough money to eat and drink for more than a few more weeks, the sort of shopping they'd be looking at would drive her to debt...
"I would absolutely love to, but I'm afraid I have a prior engagement. Another time perhaps."
Byron's eyes go wide. "They would reject a discovery like this why would they do such a thing of course I want to see the notes!"
Fi wishes Isabella and the sister fond goodbye, kissing each upon the cheek by way of farewell.
Heading back towards home she pauses once out of site to gather herself.
So, what now Fi? Back home, see if I can patch things up with my brother, maybe I should check on v'Manco, see if he will enlighten us as to where he got to - though making a house-call to him would give the wrong impression...
Okay, my brother was the one with the contacts, let's see if we can draw something out of him
Fiordelise returns home and searches for her brother.
When you enter your household, you spy Fierenzo muttering to himself and clumsily attempting to lockpick the door to the cellar (to which you possess the only key). He has not noticed you.
Fiordelise coughs lightly, "If you needed to get down there you could have just asked for the key. Though there's nothing down there any more anyway." she smiles warmly to try and diffuse the situation. "Thank you for the dress by the way."
Venturing down to the river again, Odebie keeps his hammer loose in it's leather shelf and his eyes peeled.
He steps down half-rotten wooden stairs onto a recessed dock, ignoring the smells of cheap wine and worse coming from the elan huddled under them. Ahead, a half dozen bargemen glanced at each other nervously and made sure not to glance at certain cargo containers. Walking up to one of relatively middling repute, Odebie fishes about in his pocket and pulls out two silver pieces and his badge. "These, to take me to the Misters Guild - and for me to not look to hard or ask questions on the way."
As Eldon explains the first few pages, and the logic of the notes, you realize the preliminary experiments require a reagent you ran out of a few days ago.
Grunting non-committedly at the ifrit's jabber, Odebie follows along with his eyes darting to and fro with what probably wasn't an excess of paranoia.
"Well, he abandoned me and I had to lead a group of ladies through the tunnels under the stadium to flee drug-fuelled raging elen. So, not the worst date I've had." Fi keeps her tone jovial.
"How have you been, I think I you caught me in poor mood last time we spoke"
"Hmm, I'll have to get some more of that but discretely wouldn't want someone tracking me but I need to think more clearly just a moment."
Byron pulled a small vial out of his belt pouch, shook it, and drank it. Then he went right back to reading.
As you plunge into the grasping, sticky, pawing heat of the Slums, you become aware of a sour odor coming off the ifrit dockworker. With a shiver of disgust, you realize these particular elens were working with barrels made of dead iron. The residual sour-chemical smell of the metal clings to his sweaty hands and forearms.
"Carbone morto , we'll have to swap worst-date tales the next time we have wine to drink. Anyway, what are you up to today? Looking for more dangerous adventures to piss off Isabelle with?" He grins again.
"Have you heard from her? Of her? is she really that pissed off?" Fi lets out a sigh.
"I'm trying to dig my way out of this hole we're in, but in honesty I don't know what I'm doing. I thought if I trained hard enough and wanted it enough it would all fall into place, I could be the dashing hero and be showered with praise and at least enough wealth for a little indulgeance."
"Honestly though - Karisa and Karina both liked it. Their opinion matters more. I bet v'Manco liked it too, right?" He raises his red-on-red eyebrows.
He waits until you have calmed down a bit. He takes the cold cloth off his face. The swelling is mostly gone, but the skin remains a deep discolored purple. "Lissen. Oi'll tell ye one thing far free - one of the main ingredients in this here stew is dead iron."
"I've barely spoken to v'Manco. He left us in a not-so-safe room and I can only assume he went to do his job. I thought about paying him a visit, but that seemed a little too sfacciato , no?"
"You've spoken to the sisters? You have been busy, and here I was thinking you would have been in bed until late... How well do you know them, my vivace heroics seem to have impressed them."
He pauses for a moment, then smiles. "As for Karisa and Karina? I always make time for them." He grabs several pieces of fruit, snatching small nibbles here and there.
Byron frowns. "That's an odd component but I suppose we'll have to find a supply but of course that's not easy to do surreptitiously."
Sê asseblief vir my hy is nie van plan om...
Eyes narrowing and mouth curling up to show his crystal incisor, Odebie falls back a step and shrugs his shoulder - putting his hammer in easy reach and giving himself enough room to use it if necessary.
"Please, don't. I'm already in a foul mood; you do little to improve it. Take me to the Misters, get paid, walk away."
Your high check helps you decipher a second piece of the puzzle: you need true lava to melt the dead iron in the first place. That is a substance that only the Temple deals with. Excepting the black market, of course. You remember the fat ifrit you met with the other night, and wonder if he could possibly procure such items.
With an overdone air of offense, the gap-toothed ifrit bows and says, "But we are here, o' guardsman! An' a good day to ye' too!" He jogs away from you, glancing over his shoulder to make sure you aren't pursuing.
Now that he pointed it out to you, the building, about twenty feet away in the grayscale haze, bears the same insignia you saw on Leoni's leather armor yesterday: a yellow eye. Rather than stitches on leather, the Mister headquarters displays inlaid gold and copper.
When you get within five feet of the Mister HQ, a gray-cloaked figure wearing opaque goggles approaches out of the steam. In a low voice she says, "Can I help you, Mister Guard-with-no-guide?"
"Always? You have interest in them?" Fiodelise raises her eyebrow at him.
"No. If I go to far with v'Manco I'll end up a trophy-wife at best. If he doesn't get bored of me and cast me aside. I'm not closing that door yet, but I'll have to be a little more desperate."
Byron sits back for a bit, frowning. "Well that's unfortunate we'll need a much larger facility to process the dead iron and it takes true lava too which might be why the Temple objected so strongly to it not that the dead iron is great either but how sure are you that this actually works?"
With an armload of fruit cradled in his left arm, he says, "Sure I have an 'interest' in the sisters. And they like a guy who can tell them apart." He winks.
"Oi've seen a piece joost like this tear into hoondreds of darkspawn." He rolls the marble around in his hands. "Show me a 'spawn, bird, and Oi'll show you it actually works!" He slaps his knee and laughs raucously.
"Please - I was traveling with a Mister named Leoni yesterday when we were attacked; I was wondering if he had reported back and if he was recovered?"
"So Leoni hasn't come back yet. Empty void. To answer your question, I'm a member of the Watch and I've come alone - I'm sworn to help, and would have little ability to cause harm."
Byron frowns--in thought, rather than out of any emotion.
"If we have a piece we might be able to give a demonstration but that might not be enough perhaps the front would be more amenable but I don't know anyone there and it's not like you can just walk up to a captain there..."
He has to pause to take a breath in the midst of his thinking aloud. "There's the black market of course but I'd rather avoid that if possible the complications of working with them are always distracting not to mention they're the sort of people who do things like run Gasp which means I have no desire to support them..."
Another breath. "This seems like the sort of difficult societal problem I'd rather avoid why can't they just support the sciences without all of these religious restrictions..."
He trails off, thinking in silence for a moment. Then he speaks again. "I'm theorizing we'll need something representative of air and water based on this pattern which likely means we'll need even more difficult-to-obtain materials and all of this means money."
Byron says the word with considerable distaste, though not quite so much as he'd used for Gasp. "How am I supposed to get that kind of money Eldon? No you don't have to answer it's just another problem to solve but one I'm rather unsuited to solve based on current evidence."
"How do you tell them apart? I'm not sure I quite picked up which one was which in the first place? Or is it a detail I'd rather not know?" Fi lets out a laugh, glad to be talking to her brother again and not chastising him for being drunk.
"I don't want a marionetta to boss around, but I don't want to bind myself to someone who sees me more as decoration than a living elen. Perhaps I read too many faerie stories as a child, ay?"
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You hear a knock on the door. You hear Giulia's voice outside. "Alright, cazzo? I'm knocking, not sneaking in through the window this time. Can I come in?"
"Anyway, to answer your question..." He nods his head and smiles. "Well, speaking of faerie stories...you should re-read la principessa sul pisello again." He winks. With no further explanation, he gives you a wide wave goodbye as he saunters toward the backdoor of the house, located on the far wall of the kitchen.
From the other end of your house, there is a jovial, self-important knock on your front door.
"Hm? Oh yes come in come in," Byron replies, making his way over to the door to open it.
Fiordelise ponders his last comment as she answers the door. The door is already open by the time she thinks to question whether Enzo left just before someone arrived on purpose...
"Uh, listen Byron. I just wanted to run that meeting by you one more time - with my ifrit friend? He wanted to see if you wanted to do any business together. Meet at a quieter place this time."
"Last I saw he was with a friend; we can head there now. Be careful, though - whomever attacked us targeted him first."
So saying, he made sure she was following and started walking towards the Incarna Household.
Fiordelise smiles demurely and stands aside "Of course, please, make yourself at home." she replies with only slight sarcasm. "I trust you didn't worry unduly about our safety yesterday - as are no doubt aware we all made it home safely."
Byron nods. "Yes yes that would be fine what time and where would we meet I'll make sure to write a reminder to myself somewhere I'll see."
"Merde. Don't turn around, but there are others--Misters, I think--following us. I don't think they'll go past the steam border, though..." She continues walking nonchalantly. The Great Temple looms to the north, blocking out Volcano's light for a dozen steps or so.
Suddenly, a priest of Volcano steps in front of the two of you. Judging by his robes, the old undine is, in fact, an inquisitor of Volcano. He stares at you as he might a specimen under glass. It is a gaze devoid of compassion. "What purpose would a guard of the Dims and a Mister have skulking about the Temple? State your business."
His voice is flat, almost uninterested.
Byron thinks for a moment. "Well yes today would work I suppose any time really I'm in the middle of a project but perhaps he might be able to help."
Odebie shifts slightly, trying to get a good view around him and failing miserably. To the Inquisitor, he does his best to suppress a frown. "Guard business, of course - a Mister in my employ was wounded yesterday; I'm taking his guildmate to see him. Can we help you?"
"So, tell me more about your daring exploits. I couldn't get the whole story from those breathless v'Ricci sisters."
"Oh, well, I'd hardly call it daring. It was more running away in a controlled manner." she smiles at him.
"Your safe-room appeared to be less-safe than we hoped, as something was pounding upon it with terrible effectiveness. We found an escape route beneath the piano, and we fled down it."
Should I tell him about the lab... most likely the v'Ricci sisters have told him everything already... no sense holding back
"Our blind flight through the tunnels led us to the lab of a Gasp producer - he threatened to blow up his lab, so I... dealt with him, as the others fled."
Byron nods agreement, then retreats back inside to prepare. He makes certain nothing is going to explode while he's gone, leaves a note for Eldon ("Left on business. Don't light anything on fire."), then comes back to the door to wait for Giulia.